The Whole Garage Catalogue: 2015

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

A Stanley No. 399 Surform

I already have one of these, along with the bigger 'plane'-style version. I never use either of them.

The Surform tools are Stanley's refinement of the wood rasp. I never use a rasp, either.

If I didn't find business & commerce to be such a pain-in-the-neck, I'd put the whole works up on Kijiji for five bucks and try to be rid of them.

I guess I'll just try to make room in the drawer for this additional Surform, and stash it with the others. Perhaps something will come up for which a Surform will be just the tool I need.

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Mystery Washer

The opening is just shy of 9/16" across. The outside diameter is 1 3/16"; thickness is just shy of 7/32".

Embossed around the bevelled perimeter is, "SEE MANUAL DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN BOLT".

I have no idea what the washer is for. It can go with my collection of miscellaneous large washers.

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Friday, April 17, 2015

An All-Plastic Hand Screw

Even the screw is plastic. I can't imagine what this might be from or for.

It looks to be quite useless, but it's too nice to throw out. I'll stash it in my UBICTIO (Useless But I Can't Throw It Out) bin.

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Friday, February 13, 2015

A Ray-O-Vac Sportsman Lantern

A lantern from the days when men were men, and a proper portable lantern weighed over four pounds.

The red flasher beacon is articulated so it can be elevated.

The beam is powerful. It ought to be, considering that replacement batteries are about twenty dollars

This lantern has accumulated a lot of grime over the years. I'll clean it up and get it back as close to pristine condition as I can. Meanwhile, here are the bulb specifications:

Flasher Beacon

No. 407
G-4 1/2 bulb
Miniature screw base
4.9 volts
300 milliamps
1.2 candlepower

Beam

No. 4546-1
PAR36 bulb, 4 1/2" diameter
4.7 volts
500 milliamps
6,300 max. beam candlepower

The above bulb complement is fairly common for this class of lantern. Eveready made a similar lantern that took the identical set of bulbs. Replacement bulbs can still be had from the internet.

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And here's the lantern looking reasonably spiffy for the first time in a long while.

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Introduction

This blog is in honour of my deceased father, Nick Gaspick.

It sprang from what had started out as merely a post on my workshop blog, Rouge River Workshop. Here's my introduction to that post:

"My son has been clearing out my deceased father's garage, so he'll have a place to restore an old car, and he's been finding all manner of stuff. I've begun one post about an old woodworking vise that I mean to restore. This weekend, my son brought me four toolboxes full of items. As a small honour to my father, I'll 'catalogue' them in this post, in no particular order, little-by-little as I go through the boxes."

The nature of the post was for it to grow ever longer, and that can be dangerous. Blogger has some quirks that I've experienced in the past, and I was getting tired of always backing up the entire post so I wouldn't lose it should Blogger vapourize an editing session. I finally decided to make a full-blown blog with an index out of the post. Here it is.

I'll leave the original post as it is, where it is, but I'll bring over all the items in it so far as individual, indexed posts here as well. Needless to say, new material will only appear here.

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A Little About My Father:

My father emigrated to Canada with his family from Croatia at about the age of seven. His family took on a homestead up Sudbury, Ontario way, and made a living there through the great depression.

My father loved school, and yearned to continue his schooling past grade eight, but that was not on. He had to leave school to make a living -- trapping, mining, whatever. Eventually, he and his made their way to Toronto -- the big smoke in Canada.

My father was built like a brick shit-house; he was a sturdy guy, unlike scrawny me. My father was a guy who could clear an acre of Canadian bush before breakfast, have it tilled and planted before lunchtime, with the plants sprouting before dinnertime.

Jesus H. Christ!-- a guy like my father ought to have lived forever!